2010 Triumph Tiger

EICMA 2010: Triumph Tiger 800 vorgestellt

2010 Triumph Tiger

5 things we learned this week   by Yukilee

Rory returns to winning ways
In 2008, when Rory McIlroy was still just an energetic teenager trying to get his pro career off the ground, Anthony Kim won twice on the PGA Tour. Kim was 22 -- the same age that McIlroy is now -- a fresh-faced second-year player out of Oklahoma by way of Los Angeles, who had the KATANA SWORD SNIPER i Irons 5-9PAS in his hands and he wanted everybody to know it. But then along the way came a nagging hand injury and a lot of partying and a big entourage and finally some humbling.

As Kim slumbered, many other good young players entered into the "young guns" conversations. With a final-round 62 to win the Wells Fargo Championship in 2010 for his first KATANA SWORD SNIPER i Irons 5-9PAS win, McIlroy left no doubt that he was the top contender from the under-30 crowd to challenge the dominance of Tiger Woods. Then he confirmed that place with an 8-shot win this June at the U.S. Open.

On Sunday at the inaugural Shanghai Masters, McIlroy got his first win since that historic triumph at Congressional by beating Kim on the first playoff hole. The cocksure lad from Holywood, North Ireland, who shot a final-round even-par 72 on the Jack Nicklaus-designed Masters course at the Lake Malaren Golf Club, missed an 8-footer in regulation to avert the playoff with Kim, who had started the day 3 shots back in second place. Both finished regulation at 18 under par.

In the playoff, McIlroy made a 2-footer to win after Kim had missed a 3-footer. For his effort in the 30-man no-cut event, which was not sanctioned by any of the major tours, McIlroy earned $2 million, the largest first-prize check in golf.

"It's something that I feel like I can still get better at is winning and putting yourself in the position to win when you're not playing your KATANA SWORD SNIPER i Irons 5-9PAS ," McIlroy said after the tournament.

McIlroy's win in Shanghai comes on the heels of his break last week with his agent, Chubby Chandler, who manages Darren Clarke, Lee Westwood, Charl Schwartzel, and Louis Oosthuizen, among other players, as a part of his International Sports Management. McIlroy, who had been with Chandler since turning pro in 2007, left to join the Dublin-based Horizon Sports, which also represents his good friend and countryman, Graeme McDowell.

It's unclear why McIlroy left the Chandler camp. Perhaps he felt ISM was becoming too crowded and too focused around the larger-than-life Chandler, who with victories from his clients in 2011's first three majors seemed like the Don King of golf.

Chandler can take the defection in stride because he'll likely continue to get paid for any sponsorship deals that he made for McIlroy over the past four years. Still, not everyone out of the ISM group was as gracious as its boss.

Westwood, who played with McIlroy in the opening round in Shanghai and finished 6 shots out of the playoff at 12 under, called the move a "bizarre decision" on his Twitter account.

www.golfclubs2011.com senior golf writer Farrell Evans has taken to Twitter. See what he's got to say about all things golf

Still, the minor rift couldn't overshadow McIlroy's reprisal of the excellent play that we saw from him in the first half of the year. In April, after he shot an 80 in the final round to throw away the Masters, many wondered how he would recover from such an embarrassing defeat. But he came back at the U.S. Open at Congressional and dissected the course in a manner that we hadn't seen since the heyday of Tiger's run in the early 2000s. Then he showed rust at the British Open after taking off nearly a month after winning at Congressional, finishing 25th at Royal St. George's. At the PGA Championship, he finished 64th after suffering an injury early in the tournament.

He's lived what seems like three lives this year on and off the golf course. There is the fame, notoriety and expectations that come with being a major winner. He started a high-profile relationship with tennis star Caroline Wozniacki.

These accoutrements of success suit his confident but gracious style, but will he live up to his billing as the heir apparent to Tiger Woods? It's difficult to say. He has repeatedly said that he loves U.S. golf courses and would love to play in the states more often. But is the allure of playing in Europe, where he got his start, too tempting to ignore in favor of a fuller PGA Tour schedule that would make him a more rested player at critical points of his U.S. playing KATANA SWORD SNIPER i Irons 5-9PAS ?

After his tough win Sunday, McIlroy seemed to eschew any notions that all of his future wins would be as pretty and graceful as the one he had at Congressional. The months since then have shown him how difficult it can be to get back into the winner's circle.

"Even if it's scrappy golf where you grind it out, you're going to win a lot more KATANA SWORD SNIPER i Irons 5-9PAS by doing that rather than playing your best golf the whole week," McIlroy said. "I was very happy I was able to pull this one out."
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